Two Girls to a Team

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As TV audiences become more genre-savvy, tropes like The Smurfette Principle are becoming increasingly more obvious. Naturally, the quicker people pick up on this the more complaints the show is likely to get. So how do modern writers address this problem? Give the Ensembletwo girls early on. Although this may not seem like much of an improvement, it does signify a (small) shift in how females are portrayed in media. For one, a 3:2 male-female ratio is far closer to the actual male-female population than 4:1. Similarly, it also shows that being a female in a male-majority group does not instantly relegate one to the position of The Chick or The Heart (though those positions will still usually be filled by a female). It also acts as a happy medium for writers who want the group to seem "equal", but don't want the show to be mistaken as "for girls". (Note that having a mostly male team is still perfectly unisex.)

Also note that while two girls in an ensemble of five are where they're the most common, they're also seen in groups of 6-8 as well (though not in teams of 4, because then the split would actually be even, and that's another trope entirely). If it's two girls and one guy then it's Two Girls and a Guy, which is usually only present in female-targeted shows. This trope is about two females in unisex or male-targeted shows.

Also see Girls' Night Out Episode. At least once in the series, there will be an episode where the boys are incapacitated, forcing the two girls to work together and possibly bond, despite any differences they might have.

Examples

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For a long time, M&Ms had mascots for the Red, Yellow, Blue, Orange and Green M&Ms, with the Green M&M standing as the lone female and no Brown M&M representative. However, as of 2012, a female mascot has been added for the Brown M&Ms, making for a team of six characters with two females. Made even more blatant in a "No Talking or Phones" Warning (later adapted for a 2015 commercial in the "Better With M" campaign) that stars the entire team in a faux blockbuster trailer.

Ichigo's core adventure group consists of himself, Sado, Ishida and Orihime. However, by proxy it also includes Rukia and Renji, making Rukia and Orihime the only two females in a six-person group.

There are thirteen captains and eleven of them are male. Soifon and Unohana are the only two females. Flashbacks to a century ago reveal this was in effect back then as well, with Soifon's predecessor Yoruichi being Unohana's companion female among the captains.

Hitsugaya's Advance Squad was a warband of shinigami assigned to Karakura Town in anticipation of the Espada threat. It consisted of Hitsugaya, Renji, Rangiku, Ikkaku, Yumichika and Rukia. Rukia and Rangiku were the two females.

The X-Cution consist of six members (seven when Ichigo joins): Sado, Ginjou, Giriko, Yukio, Riruka and Jackie. Riruka and Jackie are the two women.

The Royal Guard is a team of five: Ichibei, Kirinji and Ouetsu are men while Kirio and Senjuumaru are women.

In Cyber Weapon Z, Rosaland and Anling are the only females present in the eponymous program, with Anling being the only human one.

Occurred in Digimon Adventure and its sequel Digimon Adventure 02: Sora and Mimi prior to Hikari/Kari joining followed by Miyako/Yolei and Hikari/Kari in 02. Amusingly inverted in one dub that mistook Iori/Cody for a girl and dubbed him as such.

Fairy Tail starts off this way, with Lucy and Erza as the two girls in a team with Natsu, Gray, and Happy, unless you don't count Happy, which makes it equal. Later, Wendy joins the group and brings Carla with her, actually tipping the ratio in favor of the girls.

However, the trope is played straight for the villain teams, when the series does have teams big enough to even have two women:

The Edolas arc is the first to have two female villains: Erza Knightwalker and Coco, though Coco doesn't even do anything villainous.

Well, if you count Envy, whose gender is... indeterminate, the manga has about one and a half female homunculi, which sort of counts.

Genshiken has two female club members in the first season, Saki and Ohno, making it this trope. Ogiue joins in the second season, making things slightly more even, and after two male characters graduate the ratio is 4:3. Ironically, post-cancellation-and-revival the club is almost all-female.

While Naruto for most of its run enforced The Smurfette Principle almost religiously, Kishimoto got better about this towards the end; there's Tsunade and Mei Terumi of the Five Kages, and Fuu and Yugito Nii of the nine Jinchuuriki.

In One Piece, Nami and Nico Robin. And before that, Nami and Nefertari Vivi.

The villain organizations of the Pretty Cure franchise have usually The Smurfette Principle, but sometimes also qualify for this trope. However, they may work for the same organization, but not in the same team.

In Futari wa Pretty Cure, we have Poisonny of the Dark Five, and Regine of the Seeds of Darkness. The Seeds of Darkness are introduced after the deaths of the Dark Five.

In Yes! Pretty Cure 5, we have Arachnea and Hadenya, both are working for different divisions of Nightmare, also the latter is introduced after the former's death. Desparaia is not counted.

In Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GO!GO!, we have Anacondy and Shibiretta. Neither of them replace the other one, but they hate each other and they are working against each other, despite working for the same boss.

Chocolate and Tira Misu of Sorcerer Hunters. The manga sometimes had Gateau's sister Eclair as a Sixth Ranger, and Big Mama's assistant Dota was treated as part of the gang despite not going on missions.

In Tiger & Bunny we have the Blue Rose and Dragon Kid. Played with in that Camp Gay member Fire Emblem also considers himself "one of the girls", to the others' chagrin.

During the first seasons UFO Robo Grendizer followed the example of the series it was a sequel to (Great Mazinger and Mazinger Z), and Hikaru was the only female on the team. However Maria joined the group at the third season, and the series began to play this trope together with severalothers.

Yu-Gi-Oh! made keeping the number of girls on the show practically an art. Season one had Anzu/Téa and Mai. Season two, they got a little crazy and had Anzu/Téa, Mai, Ishizu, and Shizuka/Serenity all involved, although only rarely all in the same episode, as Ishizu wasn't really a member of "the gang". So, they sent Mai to the Shadow Realm, and then left Ishizu behind when they shuffled the cast off to the filler arc, leaving just Anzu/Téa and Shizuka/Serenity for half of Season three. Season four had Anzu/Téa and Rebecca, and also for the first half of season five. The final arc had two different five man bands, one modern, one ancient, with the ancient one having both Isis and Mana (three if you count Kisara).

In Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Asuka/Alexis and Rei/Blair are the only main female characters in season 3 and season 4. This is the result of Rei becoming more prominent after her one-episode role in the first season, during which Asuka had been the only female main character by way of The Smurfette Principle.

Camula and Tania are the only female Seven Stars Assassins/Shadow Riders. Interestingly, these two are among the four best duelist of the Seven Stars Assassins, and they are two of three duelists who who won spirit keys.

In Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, Aki/Akiza and Ruka/Luna are the only females of Team 5Ds.

It also happened later on the X-Men, with Polaris joining Jean Grey. In the All-New, All-Different team, Jean Grey soon returned to the X-Men to join Storm, and after the Phoenix' death she was replaced by Kitty Pryde.

In the 1970s, the originally all-male Defenders evolved into a team with a gender-balanced core of two males (Nighthawk and the Hulk) and two females (Valkyrie and Hellcat).

Young Avengers starts with four guys, but introduces two girls in the first couple of issues. After the The Children's Crusade ends with Cassie and Vision dead and Eli seemingly retired, the reformed team has the same dynamic with Kate Bishop / Hawkeye and Miss America.

Astrid and Ruffnut of How to Train Your Dragon are the only girls on Hiccup's dragon rider team, and the latter is mistaken for her twin brother. The second film adds Valka, Hiccup's mother.

Ducky and Cera in The Land Before Time. Although it could have been worse. In the original script Cera was actually going to be a male character, but George Lucas, who was a producer on the film, suggested changing the gender for a little extra diversity.

In Alien: Resurrection there is Call and Ripley. Before that, Call and Hillard were the only two female crew members on the Betty. Hillard is killed off shortly after Ripley joins them, thus keeping the trope intact.

In Prometheus, which is set in the same universe there are also two major female characters: Meredith Vickers and Dr. Elizabeth Shaw. Ford was on board too, but was for the most part a fairly minor character.

Scream (1996): The film starts out with a 5-person friend group made up of Sidney and Tatum (two girls) with Billy, Stu and Randy (3 guys). Tatum is the red to Sidney's blue. Gale Weathers is also a prominent character, but she has little interaction with the teens for the first half of the film. About halfway through the film, when Tatum dies, and all of the protagonists come together against the killer, Gale Weathers takes Tatum's place as the second girl.

Stripes: Stella and Louise fit this trope, though they're not part of the team in question, just the two female cops who keep bailing Winger and Zisky out of trouble as part of their romance subplot.

The Thing prequel, unlike the famously all-male cast of the 1982 film has two women in the camp- both scientists though Juliette is assimilated early on, leaving Kate the only female for the rest of the film.

Downplayed in the original novel of Carl Sagan, Contact, where Faster-Than-Light Travel machine allows humanity to send 5 people, the governments briefly discuss on whether they should send 3 men and 2 women or 3 women and 2 men; ultimately they decide that it doesn't matter since regardless of the choice, there's always going to be one more individual either gender. They end up sending 3:2 men-women ratio.

Similar to the example above, in Loyal Enemies in the end there are two women (well, a girl and a she-werewolf) and three men (actually, one man, one dragon and one boy) in team good guys.

Bellatrix and Alecto are the only female Death Eaters named in Harry Potter. Narcissa, Bellatrix's sister and Lucius Malfoy's wife, was never officially one, though she did have strong affiliation with them.

Live-Action TV

Angel: In the third season, Fred was added to the cast of three guys (Angel, Wesley and Gunn) and one girl (Cordelia). Cordelia was The Heart of the group, Fred was both The Smart Guy and The Chick. Although considering Wesley was already used mostly for his brain, Fred's role could be seen as primarily to act as the Damsel in Distress that Cordelia could no longer realistically fulfill. Therefore playing this trope straight. Of course, this only lasted a season and then more men were added.

Breakout Kings: Julianne (Mission Control), and con Erica, ( with Shea, Roy, Lloyd and Charlie make up the complete group of six)

On the TV show CSI, for the first eight seasons, Catherine and Sara were the only girls on the team. When Sara left, she was replaced by Riley, and then rejoined the team. Subverted in season 12, when Morgan and later Finn joined the team.

Sherlock: For the first two series, Mrs. Hudson and Molly Hooper served as this to the main cast of protagonists, also consisting of Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, Greg Lestrade, and Mycroft Holmes. Series 3 added Mary Morstan/Watson, John's fiancee/wife, bringing it up to three girls to the team.

Stargate Atlantis for the majority of its run: In Season 1 - 3: Teyla and Elizabeth, in Season 4: Teyla and Sam, in Season 5: Teyla and Jennifer.

Season 4 actually had three girls: Teyla, Sam, and Jennifer.

The original Stargate SG-1 had this in season 10 with Vala and Sam. A case could also be made for recurring character Dr Janet Fraiser being the second girl to Sam for most of the series- although she rarely accompanied SG-1 on missions off-world, she was a fairly consistent presence in the episodes set on Earth.

For most of Star Trek: The Original Series, there were two women in the core cast: Lt. Uhura and Nurse Chapel. Initially, Yeoman Rand was part of the cast as well, but the actress was let go in the middle of the first season. Only one episode ("The Naked Time") features all three women; Nurse Chapel and Yeoman Rand never interact with each other, but Uhura seems to be on fairly good terms with the both of them.

Star Trek: The Next Generation has Deanna Troi and Beverly Crusher, after Tasha's death. Both had maternal and supportive roles, being the ship's head counselor and Chief Medical Officer respectively, but Troi was more exotic while Crusher was more of a down-to-earth character.

When Jadzia died and they had to come up with a new Dax, it was decided early on that the new Dax would have to be female, so Kira wouldn't be the only girl.

Star Trek: Enterprise has T'Pol and Hoshi, the experienced and emotionless Vulcan officer and (initially) nervous rookie communications specialist. Interestingly, as T'Pol learns to embrace her emotions more as she spends more time around humans, Hoshi becomes much more adept at dealing with her own fears and doubts as the mission progresses.

It was pretty obvious when they made English-language footage for the characters out of costume and then used the Japanese battle footage. For some reason Trini in ranger mode didn't have a little skirt like Kimberly did. Or breasts, for that matter.

Gekiranger is the only team that had only one female ranger since the tradition of two female rangers per team was brought back to Sentai. However, a female villain named Mele switches sides during the final story arc and helps out the heroes, providing the show with a second heroine of sort. This was naturally carried over to Jungle Fury, since the gender switching practice was abandoned by that point.

In Go-onger/RPM, the second female ranger was not a starting member, but an extra ranger who joins the team mid-series with her twin brother, giving us another unusual color combination for the female rangers (Yellow and Silver).

Kyoryuger has it similar to the above, except the extra ranger in this case is not the main sixth ranger, and is violet in colour. Much later in the series a cyan female replaces a male ranger.

In the non-Toei produced homage to Sentai, Kanpai Senshi After V, though Pink starts out as the only girl on the team of five, she is joined by a new female Yellow when the older male Yellow has to resign, reflecting the change in tradition in Super Sentai.

Teen Wolf began with Allison and Lydia as the main cast's sole females, with four males (Scott, Stiles, Derek, and Jackson.) However, there are many significant female characters amongst the supporting cast, although still fewer than the men. After some changes within the team through the seasons, however, the team had a Gender-Equal Ensemble in season 4 (Lydia, Malia, and Kira for girls; Scott, Stiles, and Derek for guys). In season five it became unequal again with Liam's Promotion to Opening Titles, though the three girls still remain.

The core gang of six in That '70s Show has Donna and Jackie as the two females while the remaining four are male. (Eric, Hyde, Kelso, and Fez.)

In Once Upon a Time Snow White and Red Riding Hood were the only prominent women fighting in the war against Regina. Although Granny is quite handy with a crossbow (yes, really), it's never said whether she was involved in the fighting.

AAA is one of the rare few co-ed bands still active in the Asian pop music industry today. In a group of seven, Misako and Chiaki are currently the only girls.

Video Games

The white and pink birds Matilda and Stella in Angry Birds. Matilda was there from the beginning, but had an Ambiguous Gender early on. Stella was introduced in Angry Birds Seasons. Matilda serves as the Team Mom, while Stella is The Chick.

The protagonists of Chrono Trigger are an aversion, with three females (Marle, Lucca, and Ayla) to two males (Chrono and Frog) and one robot (Robo), though the robot is referred to by male pronouns. The optional party member, Magus, is male and thus tips the count to the guys' favor.

The 3DS version of the game added the NPCs Morrie, the master of the Monster Arena, and Red, a female thief to the playable cast, bringing the amount of playable characters up to 6, with 4 male and 2 female characters.

Final Fantasy II does have only Maria and Leila as playable female characters. Maria is The Heart of a group of three that sticks together for most of the game. Leila is a badass Pirate Girl.

On that note, Final Fantasy V actually turns this on its head - your initial party looks like three males and one female, but later on Faris is revealed to be a Sweet Polly Oliver, making it turn out to have been balanced. Then Galuf dies, and it becomes a four-person party with only one guy.

It's worth noting that in Final Fantasy X-2, your party consists three girls... and nobody else.

In Final Fantasy XII out of the thirteen Espers, only two are female. In-universe they're a team of guardians who rebelled against the Gods. There's some justification for this, since they're all based off the signs of the Zodiac. Virgo is the only sign with a female symbol, making a Gender Flip necessary to include another female Esper.

Inverted in Odin Sphere. Out of the five playable characters, only Cornelius and Oswald are male.

Gameplay-wise, played straight by Skies of Arcadia: as there is indeed a 4 guys: 3 girls ratio. Inverted by its story, however, as only one of those guys is a mandatory party member. The other mandatory party members? The two girls. As such, they have much more screen-time than the other three guys.

(Will soon be) Inverted in Skull Girls with every character other than (forthcoming DLC characters) Big Band and Beowulf being female.

From the Sonic Advance Trilogy, Amy and Cream are the two girls of the 5 members of the heroes, which the rest are Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles.

Mighty No. 2 Cryosphere and Mighty No. 3 Dynatron from Mighty No. 9. It was originally proposed that Dynatron and Mighty No. 8 Countershade would be the females of the Mighty Number team, but the lead character designer thought Countershade's radar and camouflage theme was more appropriate for a male character, so he made Cryosphere a girl instead, reasoning that Cryosphere's water and ice theme was a better fit for the proposed gender.

Many of the Mario spinoffs released in the Gamecube era feature Peach and Daisy as the only female playable characters. Though Birdo and Toadette would often appear and add additional girls to the roster, their presence has never been quite as surefire. With Rosalina having risen to prominence, this is no longer the case.

Inverted with the playable heroes from Hyrule Warriors. Out of the 10 playable heroes, only two are guys.

Seen in Dragon Age: Inquisition with the members of the Bull's Chargers, the Iron Bull's mercenary company; of the group, only two - Dalish and Skinner - are female (although Krem was born female).

Holds true in the Awakening expansion pack player party as well. Barring the player character, who can be male or female, three out of the six characters are male. One is a spirit and technically lacks a gender, although it's often referred to as a he, and Sigrun and Velanna round out the team.

Averted in the other games, however. With DLC, Origins has a 5-4 (technically speaking) guy-girl ratio, if you count your faithful canine companion. Dragon Age 2 has a 4-3 split, leaning one way or the other depending on the player's chosen class, and Inquisition has a 6-3 boy-girl split, although one "boy" is technically a spirit assuming human form.

This is trope is originally inverted in Our Little Adventure, with three girls in a Five-Man Band. After Pauline died, she was replaced by Emily. However, a third male, Jordie, joined the group, and Emily died, leaving only two girls.

Suburban Knights adds Obscurus Lupa to the cast, as well as a female Mook, the Witch of the Woods. All three of them return for the fourth anniversary special, To Boldly Flee, and JesuOtaku shows up as well, though by this point there are nearing twenty men in the main cast, so the female reviewers are still ridiculously outnumbered.

In True Tail, the two girls are Doh-Li the Sorceress and Melody the Bard.

Inverted with Angelina Ballerina in both the 2002 and 2009 series. William and Henry (Angelina's younger cousin) are the only two boys in Angelina's predominantly female ballet class. The Next Steps has Marco and A.Z. as the only regular boys in the cast.

Space Racers has Robyn and Starling as two of the five young cadets at Stardust Bay Space Academy.

Super Why! has Red (Wonder Red) and Princess Pea (Princess Presto) on the main team. Notable as the main team has four characters in it, making this an even split between the male members, Pig (Alpha Pig) and Whyatt (Super Why!) and the female members mentioned. Note that this is a Five-Man Band — it's just that the fifth member is supposed to be the viewer, who of course could be of any gender. Later on, they added a male character named Puppy (Woofster), making this a more typical example of this trope (three male, two female).

In early versions of Super Friends the team had Wonder Woman and Wendy, or Wonder Woman and Jayna. According to the other Wiki, the only additional female superheroes who ever made repeated appearances on the show were Hawk Girl and Rima the Jungle Girl, but neither appeared in a large number of episodes. One version of the show, Challenge of the Super Friends, featured a team in its first segment where the only female superhero was Wonder Woman. Jayna appeared as a regular in the second segment of that show.

Young Justice: Artemis and Miss Martian. This trope was so enforced in the minds of its demographic that rumors that another female team member (either Wonder Girl or Secret) would be joining the cast launched much speculation that either Artemis or Miss Martian would be outed as The Mole, die, or otherwise leave the team.

This trope, and the anxiety associated with it, has been averted with the inclusion of Zatanna as a long term member without any other character being removed from the team. As for the series's other big team, the Justice League, although there are three female members on the team, which technically means it doesn't count, the full roster is sixteen members so the essential truth of this trope is still in play. Interestingly, Wonder Woman seems to be actively working against this, as one of her stated criteria for an ideal new member to the League is that they be a woman to help shift the gender ratio.

As of the end of season 1 Rocket and Zatanna have joined the Team, so that the gender ratio is even with four boys and four girls.

As of season 2, the ratio for the team stands at five males and four females.

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